Force 8 gusts!

Not quite that bad, though..  but it was a fantastic days sailing...

Rod the Mod gave me a shout last week with another offer for a ride on Ami-Ly, and yet again I bit his arm off..  I really have missed water time this year and the trips on Ami Ly are very much appreciated.. 

Friday the 18th dawned warm('ish), sunny, but surprisingly blowy compared with the recent weather patterns..  Looks like we have a front going through, as the same weather that has dropped temperatures by 10' in less than a few days has also bought wind..  what's more north easterly's, which funnily enough is the same direction it was the last time I went out on Ami-Ly!

Anyway, round to Rod's for 0800, on the boat by 0900'ish, got her ready to go, two reefs in (and I'll admit that was by error, as we'd only planned to put one in, but it had been a while since we'd put reefs in and and had forgotten what colour line the first reef was!  ) and headed out of the harbour past the two carriers*...

...and into a rock solid force 4, gusting more, running downwind you never get a real feel for how strong the wind really is, but a glance round could see waves with the characteristic rippled/feathered feel on their surface, and plenty of white caps...

*We were listening in on VHF to the QHM channel (Portsmouth harbour master, basically) as QEII (the front one in the pictures, with the Merlin helicopters on the deck) was due to leave on exercise that morning, and in fact three Merlin's came in over the top of us as we were leaving the harbour entrance..  suffice to say it was so windy, they aborted the trip...

Plenty of sail options

So, fast trip down wind, quartering sea, and a fair amount of surfing, before diving into the mouth of the Hamble where we found a spare mid river pontoon to tie up to for lunch and snooze...

A fairly average boat at first glance, but this is 'Lutine'
which is owned by Lloyds of London Yacht club

Left the berth at 3, knowing we'd have a long up wind beat, and you can imagine our surprise when we arrived off Portsmouth less than 4 hours later... WHAT a beat, a stupendous days sailing, one of those days that we very occasionally get, a real winter remembrance day when the sun shines on the water, and the wind blows, and the boat is in the track, and you are going up wind as if on rails at steady 6's with occasional 7's. 

We came out of the Hamble and were surprised to see that we might make Ryde on one beat, but every now and again the wind would track round, and we would edge up to take advantage for for a few hundred yards, until eventually we arrived off the island at about Seaview...  one beat...  a few further beats to get us lined up for Bembridge, and we eventually tacked one last time to inch down round Spithead and a final beat down the main channel. 

One last bit of excitement - we're on Springs and there was less than zero water on the pontoons when we got back so we had to abandon her on the outside of the outermost one, and come back next morning to move her "home" - what a stunning day...

NB. No GPS track for the day, so the following is a representation...

Log:

Distance: Approx. 43 miles to the best of my calculations 
Wind (Speed; Direction): F5 gusting F6/7 (and occasionally 8! ); NExE going ExN

Sail Plan: Two reefs main, reefed jib
Speed (Max/average in knots):  We saw a few 7's and I would say the average would have been top 3's/bottom 4's